Sharks are much maligned and need our protection. Perhaps the phrase 'shark-infested' is one for the Guardian's cliche list
It was a very dramatic story about a brother and sister who swam through the shark-infested waters of the Caribbean after their fishing boat sank before reaching the island of St Lucia. But wait a minute – shark-infested? Well, that's what it said in the headline and the text of the story published on page 27 on 27 April.
The use of the phrase and the absence of the real thing throughout the 600-word story jarred readers. Rob at Tanked Up magazine, a free scuba diving magazine that also covers ecological, conservation, and medical issues around diving, wrote: "I just wanted to mention that, given the plight of sharks globally, this article is somewhat unhelpful and inappropriate. You'll notice that the closest the couple in the article got to actually seeing a shark was presumably years previously in the somewhat risible movie Open Water.
"A larger complaint, however, concerns the use of the phrase 'shark-infested'. Infestation implies the presence of something that shouldn't be there. In this instance then, the waters of the Caribbean were, if anything, human-infested. I understand that the dangers of hypothermia and drowning do not make for a particularly exciting story, but it doesn't seem right that a creature, many species of which are struggling for survival against, amongst other things, the global shark-fin trades, should have its image unjustly maligned even more than it already is."
Another reader said: "The seas are not 'infested' with sharks. They live there … Millions of sharks are being killed. By planet-infesting humans. They need protection. They rarely kill people, and even that is thought to be mistaken identity. There was no indication from what I read that the tourists were in the slightest danger from sharks, and yet you chose to focus on that element and sensationalise the already incredible survival story.
"I'm sure it's much more fun to evoke the horrors of Jaws, but when our apex predators have been persecuted out of the ocean there will be horrors real enough to follow. Genuinely disappointed in you."
I think the readers have a point. The words "shark-infested" is one of those off-the-shelf phrases that often seem to be dropped into stories to describe tropical and semi-tropical waters. There is a sort of magnetic attraction in the same way that ambulances always "race to the scene". It's an ersatz pick-me-up for stories that often don't need it.
On this occasion it certainly didn't. The siblings, Dan and Kate Suski, had been trying to land a marlin when water started coming in to their chartered fishing boat and the captain ordered them to jump into the water. The three of them, plus the boat's mate, stayed together for an hour in the water before the pair struck out on their own, worrying about sharks but happily not seeing any before they made landfall 12 hours later. According to the agency story, which formed the basis of the article put together by a Guardian staff reporter, the captain and the mate stayed as close to where the ship sank – the recommended course of action – and were rescued after 23 hours.
As one reader pointed out: "The captain and the mate (locals, therefore presumably black) were in the water for twice as long and aren't even named, let alone interviewed about how they felt."
I agree it would have been better to have the names of the two crew members. The inevitable conclusion is that the lives of two white middle-class Americans matter more than two nameless crew members. However, in fairness to the reporter the story was an entirely legitimate report of a highly dramatic incident and he did try to get their names, but the company which owned the boat refused to comment. Had quotes been available he would definitely have used them.
He didn't use the word "infest", which my Chambers dictionary describes as to "swarm over, cover or fill in a troublesome, unpleasant or harmful way, to invade and live on as a parasite". He used the phrase "shark-teeming", but during the production process an editor or subeditor reverted to "infested", as was used by the agency in the first place. I think "shark-infested" is one to add to the Guardian stylebook's cliche list.